Vivor/other readers,

Enough theory!

Unless studying thermodynamics for many years it will not be easy to come to grips with the math that proves""If you add energy to any closed system, its order will increase""

An example from marine science proves the concept without further mathematics.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/16/science/16conv.html?8br

This article examines life on the deep ocean floor where no energy except nuclear from geothermal-vent-sources exists.

Relevant article-points:

*You can go for hundreds of meters along the deep-sea floor and see nothing. But then you’ll get to a vent and it will be a garden of exotic creatures.

*The seawater percolates down through cracks caused by earthquakes, and then it comes up through these underwater chimneys.

*There are lots of ores there like copper, gold, silver, zinc and minerals. There’s so much life there.

Comments:
1.Along with heavy ores will be a representative spectrum of radioactive-actinide-elements which do not endanger lifeforms. Far more radiation than well-researched PBR technologies and current mining and enrichment processes exist.

2.The organisms live on the heat and minerals but also omnivorously on each other. That is equivalent to energy renewables in our scenario. But note WITHOUT THE GEO-NUCLEAR ENERGY-INPUT NO LIFE EXISTS.

This is proof that only a heat source in a closed-system is needed to sustain life, the most information intensive medium.
This is living proof of the 'energy=order' statement.

If Australia fails to go nuclear, crop,wind,wave and electric renewables, all based on sunlight will never provide sufficient energy for more than 1billion people. The world's population was about 1billion before coal, 2billion after. It would have grown to 6 billion just on sunlight options if it was at all possible. It didn't becuse only OIL made that possible.

What people like the Greens continually fail to appreciate is that the technologies and transport required to make renewables a successful option are ALL based on OIL. When the OIL goes, so will those renewable options and so will all but 2billion of the world's population. As we know from history, coal without OIL can only support 2billion people in doubtful comfort.

KAEP, you may be interested in this wikipedia article on "The Maximum Power Principle". It is another intriguing idea:

"Maximum power principle"
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents
1 History
2 Philosophy and Theory
3 Proposals for maximum power principle as 4th thermodynamic law
4 Definition in words
4.1 Mathematical definition
5 Contemporary ideas
6 See also
7 References

Definition in words
“ The maximum power principle can be stated: During self organization, system designs develop and prevail that maximize power intake, energy transformation, and those uses that reinforce production and efficiency. (H.T.Odum 1995, p.311) ”

“ ...the maximum power principle ... states that systems which maximize their flow of energy survive in competition. In other words, rather than merely accepting the fact that more energy per unit of time is transformed in a process which operates at maximum power, this principle says that systems organize and structure themselves naturally to maximize power. Systems regulate themselves according to the maximum power principle. Over time, the systems which maximize power are selected for whereas those that do not are selected against and eventually eliminated. ... Odum argues ... that the free market mechanisms of the economy effectively do the same thing for human systems and that our economic evolution to date is a product of that selection process. (Gilliland 1978, pp.101-102)

- / - / -

This idea seems to me to be a milestone toward defining the relationship between energy and information.

As for the chemolithotrophs which are the primary producers in sea-floor hot-spring communities, they are no more nuclear powered than a coal-fired power station. The coal is chemical energy transformed from light, generated by fusion reactions in the sun. hot spring water is heated by magma circulating in the earth's mantle, carrying heat from the radioactive core of the earth.

While the ultmate source of the energy may be nuclear, I wouldn't confuse it with nuclear technology. Otherwise, solar panels and biofuels could also be argued to be nuclear.

What national-liberal cheaters instantly leave out of a pic is an Australian dependence on oil imported. To date, it constitutes a half of consumption.

And closed systems are factually just pure theoretical structures used to analysing the processes in situations non-existing practically, whether in physics or socio-engineering, monopolist racist Anglo-colonies located on the islanes usually a perfect example present.

And the USA differs from significantly.

A wonderful exchange of information there between KAEP and Sir Vivor. Most appreciated.

KAEP seems to think that a "nation" somehow corresponds thermodynamically to a "closed system". The connection is comprehensible for deep ocean vent ecosystems, but because we share the atmosphere, oceans and international commerce with the rest of the human world, the thermodynamic parallel with socio-political entities escapes me. KAEP wants Australia to become an exporter of fission-ready nuclear fuel. How does this ambition fit the concept of a "closed system"?

There's a gross misapprehension on KAEP's part of the magnitude of energy which is received by the world, and disproportionately by Australia, in the form of sunlight and its wind and wave proxies. I refer KAEP to the BOM's map of daily incident solar radiation:

http://www.bom.gov.au/sat/solrad.shtml

Much of Australia's land mass receives over 18 MJ, or 5 kWh, per square metre per day in direct incident sunlight. At these intensities and a very conservative 5% conversion efficiency with overnight heat storage, 600 square kilometres of solar thermal collectors could replace *all* of Australia's 60GW of fossil-fueled baseload electric capacity. We have at least 1,500,000 square kilometres of arid desert. HVDC technology can transmit electric power cheaply across continents. If KAEP thinks PBNR reactors are in any way a cheaper "source" of energy than solar radiation, (s)he needs to do the calculations again.

Further, KAEP also seems to be ignorant of the energy allowed to escape as entropy in the fuel-burning processes in use in Australia. The actual energy that moves passengers and goods in petroleum-driven equipment is a fraction -- less than 10% -- of the energy released by combustion of that petroleum. Likewise less than 30% of the energy released by combustion of coal actually ends up as electric power delivered to users. The consumption of vast quantities of fossil fuels has not increased the efficiency of energy conversion one jot.

We must actively seek consumption efficiencies, not direct all our efforts to digging energy up from the ground, unless we want to run out of more non-renewable resources and deal with yet more pollution consequences.

If “KAEP wants Australia to become an exporter of fission-ready nuclear fuel”, – good on ya, mate!

What self-supposing to be more educated and subtle in decision-making forum disputants are shot of is a tragic miscalculation generations of Anglo-minders doing. This is establishing a world system where supply of a vital resource a food simply is has been concentrated in their hands, and energy sources were both underestimated and supposed being a simple commodity get for nothing as usual from lower races (or near nothing at London stock exchange for looking civilized).

Climate change corrects this racist predicament significantly, and royal Anglo-zoo in few decades to be a playground of mullahs for a few oil drops supplied to commons traditionally bonded with energetically outdated personal vehicles.

This article details the pros and cons of every electricity generation method.

http://www.geocities.com/daveclarkecb/ElecGenProsCons.html

In addition to the fatal negatives stated for solar power you can add environmental rape (600 squ-miles of it) and who is going to clean all the bloody dust and grime off the cells?!

The main problem of course is solar is not currently cost competetive with other methods.

Thermodynamic analyses and historic comparisons tell us that as oil runs out ALL solar options will be too expensive. The materials and transport options for installation will vanish. As the world approaches PEAKOIL chaos, solar options will be just a LOST dream.

This is why Thermodynamics is so important in analysing what will happen as PEAKOIL approaches. An important first step in Thermodynamic analyses is defining the closed systems involved. People not skilled in the work must understansd that it is mathematically correct to juggle input/output parameters to achieve approximate renditions of closed systems which have been shown to give acceptable analytical-results and predictive abilities.

The other aspect is that thermodynamic solutions to human situations can be shown to converge to pre-existing historical ENDPOINT scenarios. For example we know that the world's population would never have grown beyond 1billion without discovery of oil and coal, and that the thermodynamic probability of that endpoint (no coal, no oil) is extremely high approaching PEAKOIL. That is, unless NCLEAR POWER is added as a temporary measure followd by an almost total reliance on essentially inexhaustable GEOTHERMAL power.

Now it is understandable that lay-people pick up the first technology they THINK will work and rant with it. That's fine but the reality of Australia's survival demands much more rigor and I trust the thorough analyses I have presented will go some way to Australian's accepting a temprorary domestic and export NUCLEAR program that will be a) far less a health hazard than coal and b) be capable of getting us past PEAKOIL and well into a positive, sustainable GEOTHERMAL future.

Incidentally that Geothermal future will have sufficient energy to carry major solar power projects, that currently, PEAKOIL will soon Thermodynamically scuttle.